


An Eager Disciple

by Reinette_de_la_Saintonge



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 08:12:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12700905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge/pseuds/Reinette_de_la_Saintonge
Summary: Set around 3.05, a little glimpse into Whitehall featuring John Graves Simcoe and Thomas Woodhull.





	An Eager Disciple

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sarah_von_Krolock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah_von_Krolock/gifts).



> For Sarah_von_Krolock, who wondered about what Thomas was doing all the time when he was not carried around by relatives and who taught him to write. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy, as always, your comments, critique and kudos are greatly appreciated!

He walked into his study to see his desk had been made a mess of; paper and books had fallen to the floor, a bottle of ink (thank Heavens almost empty) had spilled its remnants across a map and a handful of letters and the obverse sides of some important papers had been re-purposed to host clumsy drawings of what appeared to be people, as well as some wavy lines imitating writing.

At first, he had thought of a robbery, but upon finding the evidence on his desk, the possible culprits could be narrowed down to one.

He picked up one of the drawings, a figure of a man for all he could tell, stick-limbs with a head and body resembling in shape two potatoes conjoined by a straw that symbolised the neck, but the drawing made him smile nevertheless.

If he interpreted the writer’s signature and title of this rare magnum opus that rivalled any Gainsborough on the bottom of the page correctly, little Eliza was the one who had wreaked such terrible havoc on his study.

“Papa” the figure was named, the letters disproportionate and shaky, the second “p” facing in the wrong direction.

Despite the rather unwelcome surprise, he smiled wistfully and studied his countenance in the windowpane. A few grey hairs had mingled among the copper of his temples and his by nature rather sullen-looking mouth had gained a few creases around the corners, testimony of having smiled and laughed more often in the past eight years since his arrival in England after the war.

Something about the present situation however reminded him of those days gone by across the ocean-

 

 

The rain had crashed against Whitehall’s windows like a million tiny musket balls, just like the merciless Devonshire rain fell on his own roof on this very day.

The celestial enemy ordering water to be poured from the clouds in buckets could not have chosen a worse time to strike; the roads in this godforsaken backwater town and its vicinity, if they could be called that, would transform into miry pits of a very special wet-cold hell that mercilessly found its way even through the best boots and would cause the horses to struggle.

Apparently, even the weather sided with the patriots. How was he to ever find _Samuel Culper_ if he could not even send out his men to scour the woods and secret hideouts by the water on foot?

Frustrated, he let himself fall into the chair at his desk and reached for a carafe with amber-coloured liquid in it.

A part of him desired to drink straight out of the carafe and drain it of its contents in one swig, another however reminded him of his decorum as a royal officer and so, he poured himself a glass, emptied half of it, and then continued to stare into the void, listening to the eager onslaught of the rain against the windowpanes.

Lost in quite vivid and satisfying phantasies of how he would be rewarded if he caught “Culper” (whom he knew to be Robert Rogers), made a Lord even perhaps, he lost track of time; how would Anna react when he would come riding into town and announce himself to her as “Lord Simcoe”?

In his dream, she had for some reason returned to Setauket, to a cold bed and no husband to lie in it.

Or, what if-

 

Yes, in his dream, Hewlett had obviously ridden to her rescue (though not on a white stallion, for obvious reasons) and was with her. The Major was passionate in his very own awkward, dusty and boring way, who knows if the beaten dog would not run back to the mistress that birched him?

Perhaps the good little major would not be half the man _he_ was, then. Maybe she would even wonder, shackled to the bone-dry astronomer, for whose love she would have to compete with Wilhelm Herschel (in his time under Hewlett’s command, he had often witnessed Hewlett’s eyes light up when among his letters was one from this German fellow. -Did his eyes light up for _her_ in the same way?), if she should not have taken the Captain‘s hand when she could have.

What cruel (satisfying) trick of fate, she could have been Lady Simcoe, revered by a husband who would have given her everything, but would now have to live out her days as Mrs Edmund Hewlett, the past-time Hewlett could indulge in when the night proved too cloudy to make use of his telescopes.

And then, he would ride away on his proud horse in a general’s uniform, and all of Setauket would doff their caps and pay homage to him.

Returning from his phantasy to the present, he found he had rather gone off her, Anna, Mrs Strong, or Mrs Almost-Hewlett.

 

He felt a little wistful; she had been a part of his dreams for so long, for his designs for the future. His body felt like a house that has been left by a visitor who had stayed a while before departing again, leaving behind nothing but an unmade bed and a forgotten glove on the mantelpiece over a cold fireplace.

He would have to write that down, poetry had always been his way to come to terms with unwanted emotions. They were rather impractical and attaching one’s self to a person in this hostile climate of war had been unwise right from the start.

 

_Say, were his lips sweeter than mine?_

_Say, is he not well past his prime?_

_Say, am not I young and in health,_

_Or did you want him for nought but his “wealth”?_

_A major over a captain to choose_

_Is seldom a sign of courtly love._

_Do you not think it hurt to see_

_You walking with him, away from me?_

_Say, do you not think that I have a heart?_

_That I am loveless and my soul not torn apart?_

_What gives you the right to judge, _

_Me, the blood-stained soldier, little tavern drudge?_

 

 

It felt so good to spill his feelings onto the page, to calm the raging blood in his veins with the rigid scrawl of his hand, to see how his feelings manifested in words that could only be written and never spoken.

Caught up in his poetic labours, he did not take notice of the pitter-patter of small, naked feet behind him.

After some time which he had spent pondering what could possibly rhyme with “He bears a resemblance to a frog in a wig” he looked up from the page. Something felt wrong. Was he being watched?

He spun around in his chair, eager to catch the spy in the act- but where he would have suspected an adult, a much smaller figure stood, dressed in a white nightshirt.

Young Thomas Woodhull stood close by, obviously curious what he was doing at his grandfather’s desk.

The boy seemed somewhat frightened by his sudden movement; had he known it was only the child he would not have reacted thus.

It was past ten o’clock at night to be sure, should a boy his age not be in bed?

His features softened; of all inhabitants of Whitehall and indeed Setauket, Thomas Woodhull was the person he considered least of an enemy. On the contrary, there was an odd spot of rare compassion for the boy who seemed to be perceived as some sort of trophy or hostage by the warring factions of his father, mother and grandfather, who shamelessly used custody of the boy as leverage in their adult disputes. The little boy was much less a person than a moveable possession, a piece of furniture that changed ownership frequently.

He should have known. Only the last night, when he had taken up residence, the boy had been wandering around alone- he could still vividly see all the Woodhull’s alarmed faces, when they had seen him, holding the boy, the old Judge even having discovered him rocking the boy on his knee to the tune of _The British Grenadiers_.

While he had enjoyed threatening the man with the letter to no end, he could not fathom why the Judge, or later on his son, would consider their son in danger when with him. Had he ever directed his ire against a child? Had he ever treated a child in the way he treated grown (patriot) men?

He felt genuinely insulted at the insinuation he would not shrink back from harming an innocent child, which did not particularly aid to improve his _–relationship-_ with the fully grown members of the Woodhull family.

All day he and his men had searched for Rogers until the rain set in, but found nothing, which did also do nothing to better his mood.

“Should you not be in bed?”, he asked sternly, but without the vitriolic malice in his voice most adults only knew too well.

Thomas only shook his head in a movement he interpreted as indifference, or rather that those who should have ensured the boy’s nightly rest seemed to be indifferent to doing so.

He smiled, best as he could, hoping he looked somewhat reassuring. If he was honest, he had no knowledge how to converse with children. He had none of his own (one day, perhaps, when there would be a wife to share his name, there would be) and his relations had been few and he the youngest after his brother’s death, the rest all elderly aunts and uncles apart from his mother.

Children he usually only watched from afar, wondering if he had been like them when he had been at their age, so careless and happy.

Truth be told, he had not been a happy or pleasant child. Percy had been the beloved little cherub with ruddy cheeks and a broad smile while he, or so he had been told, had been a difficult infant and a reclusive, quiet boy who preferred the company of his books to other children and often received punishments for speaking up to adults when he had felt wronged and was often found doing things he was told not to do, frequently beating other boys at school (they had teased him first, which caused him to be devoid of any mercy or remorse in his ways of dealing with them) and fighting with his younger brother, who in the eyes of all the world was a good little boy, obedient and mannerly and always received attention and kind-words a-plenty whereas he was considered the embodiment of unruliness, naughty and incorrigible, beloved by none save Mother.

He remembered a conversation between two servants he had overheard at his godfather’s house, where he and his mother had been invited to stay shortly after his brother’s tragic death by drowning:

“I pity Mrs Simcoe. Three sons and her husband laid to rest-“

“Poor Master John is to be pitied, too. Fatherless, his brothers all dead-”

“Yes”, responded the other, “if he were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate his forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that.”

Certainly, Thomas Woodhull’s character was of a more amiable sort than his own at that age and with his angelic locks of blonde hair and blue eyes that did not pierce the soul with icy daggers but warm the heart with their innocent gaze, he would certainly have won everyone’s compassion while the sullen-looking boy with the unsettling eyes and red hair that was, according to the old wives’ tales he had been told, an outward manifestation of his difficult character, had only been treated with cold carefulness, as if he were a wild animal one would not wish to upset for fear of the consequences.

The quiet little boy continued to eye him with curiosity. He did not speak much for his age, testimony perhaps of the way he was raised in nomadic limbo between his three closest relatives of which none to his knowledge took care of the boy’s education.

Or perhaps he was simply a careful, cautious child, which too was likely the product of his upbringing, the constant changes of abode and the bad example of his father in particular; he wondered if the child was wise enough to have recognised the errors and faults of character in his father, and if this youthful recognition of adult falsehood had moulded him to become the exact counterpart of the man who had sired him.

“Are you cold?” He had come to take notice of the little boy’s crouched posture, keeping his arms close to his body. No wonder, he was wearing nought but his nightshirt.

For the lack of anything else better suited to the task at hand, he took his uniform jacket that had reclined idly draped over the back of his chair and put it around the boy’s shoulders.

Of course, the garment was much too big for the child, but at least it provided him with some warmth.

With odd satisfaction he realised the boy was smiling at him gratefully and not entirely without admiration in his eyes; if only the older Messrs Woodhull could see the boy now, accoutred in the green of the Queen’s Rangers, he thought, savouring the irony of the situation before returning with his thoughts to the child in front of him.

“Tell me, Thomas, why are you still up?”

Thomas shook his head. He did not know, it seemed.

“I am still up because I have important business to do”, he continued, eager to show the rightfully cautious child he meant no harm by continuing to attempt to converse with him.

His _important business_ was technically a lie but a statement much better suited to a young boy’s ears than what he had done before the boy’s arrival.

Thomas hung his head and turned around without a word and headed for the door, doubtlessly conditioned to relate certain phrases to being sent away without the exact order being entailed in their wording.

“No”, he said quickly, “why don’t you stay?”

He could hardly let the child walk around the house alone at night. If something would happen to the little boy, he could never forgive himself. What if Thomas tripped and fell on the staircase, breaking his neck? Or hurt himself on the sharp corner of a table? The possibilities to come to harm in the dark by accident were endless, even for an adult.

“Come”, he said to the boy, and offered him to sit on his knee.

The youngest Woodhull weighed next to nothing, he found as he lifted him up.

With interest Thomas eyed the books and papers scattered across the desk.

“Can you read, Thomas?”

The boy shook his head. How could he? Nobody seemed to take care of his education and besides, he was quite young still.

“If you learn your letters, you can read all the stories that are written in these books.”

Slowly, the boy seemed to warm up to him, for he nodded eagerly at this last sentence. Apparently, the prospect of a new story seemed to excite him.

“I can teach you how to”, he offered, “but you must promise me to be a good disciple and practice obedience.”

Again, an eager nod assured him of the boy’s interest to learn and good behaviour.                

“Now then. This is an _A_ , as in apple, or army.”

He pushed the paper with the half-written poem aside and wrote the letter on the fresh sheet underneath, big and clear for his lesson’s purposes.

“You must know to write as well as how to read, if you want to be a gentleman. It is your turn.”

Luckily, a pencil was close by that could be used for the purpose of instructing the child so he would not have to give him his quill, which would likely have taken damage in the hands of a first-time writer.

First, he corrected Thomas’ grip of the pencil to how one should hold it in the proper fashion and then guided the boy’s hand as he traced the lines of the letter.

“Good”, he praised the boy, sensing it was vital to reassure the child in his desire to broaden his mind, “you are quite a natural.”

They continued their lesson for a short while until heavy steps on the floorboards in the corridor indicated the Judge had risen for some reason or other.

 “Go, Thomas. You mustn’t tell anyone of this, do you understand? This must be our secret. Your grandfather must not catch us.”

Thomas nodded again, gravely this time, like a little adult understanding the importance of secrecy in this matter and quietly slipped through the door.

From afar, he heard the Judge call his grandson’s name and enquired why he was not in bed, scolding the maid in the same sentence for not having kept an eye on the boy when it was clear the reason the boy was up was his own negligence.

When both the Judge and his grandson seemed to have retired to their respective rooms, he blew out the candle and retired to bed himself.

The following night, Thomas returned; and returned again the night after the last. He never spoke much, but could sometimes be coaxed to laugh –quietly- and he went about his lessons with a diligence he had rarely seen in the boys he had been to school with and who had all been older than Thomas Woodhull.

They had taken it for granted, being sent to the best schools in the land on their parents’ money and often resented it for one reason or the other, found their lessons dull and had rather wished to be outside and play or lie idly in the shadows of a tree; now here was a boy who would never enjoy the privileges of Exeter Grammar School and Eton, who would have deserved better teachers than him, men schooled in the art of instruction, who learned with fervour and keenness he had never seen in himself even- and until this day, he had considered himself an example of youthful learnedness.

Their lessons continued and Thomas made progress; he could write his own name in clumsy, unpractised script within the week and recognised a handful of individual capital letters.

One night, they had paused when Thomas had come to the study not with his usual smile but with a sad expression on his face and slightly swollen eyes that indicated he had cried earlier in the day.

He had been occupied outside Whitehall most of the day, inspecting his men and making sure that the townspeople still remembered his presence, so any occurrences at Whitehall had inevitably escaped him.

In his hands, the little boy held a wooden toy horse, its left foreleg broken in two. Carefully, he had taken the toy away from the boy, put it aside and seated Thomas on the newly added second chair, the one with several cushions on it to heighten the seat, at the desk and read to him from the _Iliad_ instead.

In the morning, he had sook out a man known in Setauket for his woodcraft and offered him a sum much exceeding the value of a wooden toy to carve a new one within the day after the broken model he provided him with and obligated the man to a strict vow of silence. If news of his commission were to circulate in town, he reminded the man, he would find himself deeply regretting his loose tongue.

The man had done as he was bid and in the evening, after a strenuous lesson in which he had begun to explain the difference between “d” and “b”, he had guerdoned Thomas with his new toy.

From then on, the boy had started to talk a little, a few sentences here and there, and even doubled his diligence and eagerness.

“Aberdeen, do you know where Thomas got the new horse from?”, the judge had asked her at the breakfast table the next morning as she brought a loaf of bread.

“No sir”, was her honest answer, and all the Judge could do was frown while he feigned indifference an avoided Thomas’ face, hoping the boy remembered his promise of secrecy.

Thomas did well and did not even bat an eye when asked directly by his grandfather and shrugged before running off with his new toy to play in the parlour. Thomas was a child raised more on secrets and lies than food and drink; he should have known the boy’s abilities to hide a truth could be relied upon.

It was soon however the weather improved and the Rangers could be deployed more frequently; in the weather of the last week, no man could have come far, especially when travelling alone and on foot and, as he suspected, without the possibility to frequent taverns and inns for shelter at night.

At one house in a small village south of Setauket, he by chance came across a copy of _A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, intended for the Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly with Two Letters from Jack the Giant Killer_.

He had owned a copy himself as a boy and found it rather dull, but for someone learning his letters, it might do. Not so much as a fountain of entertainment or moral instruction, but as a starting point from which he could later conquer other books. Besides, it even bore the youngest Woodhull’s name in the title.

And so, the book went missing from its original owner’s home during a raid. Since it belonged to a man whose anti-Christian name bespoke a rebel, he had no remorse for having taken it, nor regarded his _confiscation_ of said item as theft, even if his brief education in the matters of law had taught him otherwise.

When first he entrusted the boy with his new treasure on the night of his return, he had marvelled at the book, which was to be his entirely.

He smiled. What little, simple joy the boy found in an old, worn book.

He proceeded to read the verses to him, in order to make them easier for the boy to remember, for he knew full well it would only be a matter of time until they were discovered and the boy watched more closely, or the Woodhulls would play their little power-plays again and the boy might be pawned away to his father’s drafty cabin. If Thomas remembered the verses, he could then practice the letters with them and thus teach himself once their lessons ended.

The Woodhulls should be thankful, if anything, that someone in a position of great responsibility with plenty of work to do and in possession of a thorough education from Eton and Oxford had taken it upon himself to instruct their son, which they were apparently unable to do, constantly busy with their sorry little lives and occupied with trying not to trip into the snares of their own lies.

 

 _The_ little _n play._

_train-Branding._

_THE_ Serjeant Hero _here appears,_

 _Strutting before his_ Grenadiers _;_

_And leads his mighty valiant Men,_

_First up the Hill, then down again._

_The_ great _R._

_GREAT A, B, and C,_

_And tumble down D,_

_The Cat‘s a blind buff,_

_And she cannot see._

_a, b, c, d._

 

He read all the little poems corresponding to the letters of the alphabet to him, except for _The_ great _K play_ , which he personally had no great love for. To his delight however, the boy seemed to love _The_ little _n play_ best, especially when it came accompanied with a rendition of _The British Grenadiers_ , which he provided freely, having a certain partiality to the tune also.

It had all come to an end when Rogers had shot him that was finalised by his eviction from Setauket by Colonel Cooke.

Thomas had, contrary to what he had told Woodhull, not “slept through it”, of course not, with shots being fired and the Queen’s Rangers gathering at Whitehall, him shouting orders to his men, loud and angry like a wounded beast, how could he have?

With his men out searching for the man who had almost succeeded in extinguishing him, the faithful Aberdeen (sometimes he wondered how much bravery and stoic resilience there must have been in this woman for putting up with the Woodhulls on a daily basis without being allowed to talk to them in the way he did) had brought him bandages, a cloth and basin filled with clean, warm water to wash and dress his wound.

Upon realising the sight of such excessive quantities of blood made her uneasy, he had sent her away, telling her he would be “fine” (whatever that meant, given his constitution) without her.

The more blood he was able to remove from his face, the clearer it had become to him he would be scarred for life. It was not something one could come to terms with easily, losing an ear. And it was not only the wound that pained him and the thought of having an ugly scar for all the world to see, it was the high-pitched noises in his ear that did only subside after several days that had scared him and driven him to the edge of insanity, fearing he would never regain hearing in his left ear, an apprehension that had luckily not come true.

When he was finished, he had rested himself on the bed, still fully clothed and disregarding the fact that he was likely staining the bedding with his blood-drenched cuffs.

His eyes had not been closed a full minute in an attempt to sleep, when the door had creaked and, to his surprise, Thomas had entered, holding his book in his hands.

The boy had looked at him curiously, studied him, trying to make sense of this new, somewhat unsettling situation and the bowl with the bloody rag swimming in it on the bedside table.

He had walked up to the bed and looked at him with his big, round eyes, placing the book on the mattress.

“Not tonight, Thomas”, he had said, as softly as he could and trying to sound calm in front of the child even if he did not feel so inside.

When Thomas had reacted by hanging his head and leaving, it made him feel oddly sad.

Surprisingly, Thomas had returned soon after, slipping into the room quietly without even making a noise.

By then, he had found some shallow rest and in a state of being half-asleep had noticed someone was standing next to the bed and opened his eyes once more.

It was Thomas, who presented him with a scrap of paper, the back an old bill for something, on which a squiggly, childish hand had drawn a smiling face and written “Thomas” underneath in pencil.

He recalled it had made him smile and, to his surprise, feel somewhat better.

Only two or three times before his eviction had they managed to meet and study the letters together, after that, he had not seen Thomas Woodhull ever again.

What if the little boy had known about the rivalry between him and his father, their attempts to kill each other? Wasn’t it odd how he despised Abraham Woodhull, but had only had pity and compassion for Thomas?

 

_The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him._

 

No, Thomas had been not responsible for the elder Woodhull’s misdeeds.

He wondered what and how the boy was doing now; how old would he be 13? 15?

 

 

 

“Papa?”

A tentative little voice asked and ripped him abruptly from his thoughts; turning around, away from the window, he found little Eliza standing there, biting her lip and shifting uneasily from one foot to the other.

So it was true, the culprit always returned to the scene of the crime.

He let his gaze wander back and forth between his eldest daughter and his desk.

“Are you very cross, Papa?” the tiny voice asked, high-pitched somewhat like his own when speaking in a state of emotional agitation.

“No”, he sighed, letting his eyes fall to the drawing he still held in his hand and looked at the five-year-old standing in front of him, her hands and rose-coloured dress ink-stained.

“Though next time, you will ask before you ‘borrow’ any of my supplies again and you will not fetch anything from my desk without my permission.”

“Yes”, a head of unruly auburn hair nodded vigorously, “and you won’t tell Mamma I have played in the study?”

 _Played_ was not the right word, he thought. Miss Eliza Simcoe could have destroyed the entire camp of the Continental Army single-handedly and would probably have been more effective in breaking the spy ring by simply creating chaos on their desks than he had ever been.

“I won’t tell her. What a mess you’ve made. I’ll call someone to clean it up. But,” he continued, “I see you have practiced your letters.”

He held up the drawing and watched his daughter’s face light up.

“I want to write letters to people.”

“Why do you want to write letters?”

“So I can get them and read them to everyone at the table, like you and Mamma do.”

“Would you like me to show it to you? Reading and writing?”

“Yes, I would like that a lot.”

With one hand, he wiped some of his ruined correspondence from the table to make room for a fresh sheet of paper before lifting his daughter onto his knee.

“Now then. This is an _A_ , as in apple, or army.  Yours looks quite fine already-”

**Author's Note:**

> Simcoe's terrible, no good poem has been written by me. What word would rhyme well with "frog in a wig" I leave to your imagination.
> 
> “Poor Master John is to be pitied, too." etc.: Lifted from "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë (1847). The original quote goes:
> 
> _Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, “Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot.”_  
>  _“Yes,” responded Abbot; “if she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that.”_  
>   
>  Simcoe, the book thief: Like the fact that the historical!Simcoe was absolutely enchanted with his own brood of nine, the detail about him stealing books has been inspired by history. In a 1776 letter he wrote from Boston to his mother in England, he mentions having found a case of books that were used as part of a barricade and that he knows to whom the books belong, but they are so good he will rather keep them for himself, if he can manage to get them transported.  
> "...they belong to Percy Morton, whose anti-Christian name bespeaks a rebel." -Sounds familiar with regard to the story, right?  
> You can find the hilariously written letter in which Simcoe talks about stealing books, stealing a chicken, snoring officers and "anti-musical" concerts in: _The life of John Graves Simcoe : first lieutenant-governor of the province of Upper Canada, 1792-96 _by William Renwick Riddell, which is fully digitised and available online.__
> 
> "A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, intended for the Amusement of Little Master Tommy and Pretty Miss Polly with Two Letters from Jack the Giant Killer" is an actual children's book with rhymes to learn the alphabet, stories with moral underpinnings and rules for a child's behaviour in it that was first published in England in 1744. It was sold with a ball for boys and a pincushion for girls and is often regarded as the first children's book. In 1762, it was first published in America. I have worked with a digitised version from 1787, which is not entirely authentic of course, but as the book is vastly in rhymes, I don't suspect too many significant changes have been made over time.  
>   
> Why Simcoe won't read "The great K play":  
>  _SWIMMING._  
>  _WHEN the Sun‘s Beams have warm‘d the Air,_  
>  _Our Youth to some cool Brook repair ;_  
>  _In whose refreshing Streams they play,_  
>  _To the last Remnant of the Day._
> 
> He likely witnessed his brother drown in an accident in the river Exe, so he is likely not very fond of children bathing in rivers.
> 
> "The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father" etc.: Ezekiel 18:20.


End file.
